Systems and methods to characterize units of work based on business objectives

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for units of work based on business objectives are disclosed. Exemplary implementations may: manage environment state information maintaining a collaboration environment configured to facilitate interaction by users, the environment state information defining units of work and business objectives associated with the units of work; obtain progress information, the progress information for individual business objectives conveying progress toward fulfillment of the individual business objectives; update objective records for the business objectives based on the progress information so that the progress of the business objectives is maintained by the objective records; and/or perform other operations.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods to characterizeunits of work based on business objectives.

BACKGROUND

Collaboration environments may enable users to assign projects, tasks,or other work to assignees (e.g., other users) to complete. Acollaboration environment may comprise an environment in which a virtualteam of users does its work. A collaboration environment may enableusers to work in a more organized and efficient manner. A collaborationenvironment may integrate features and/or functionality such asweb-based conferencing and collaboration, desktop videoconferencing,and/or instant messaging into a single easy-to-use, intuitive interface.

SUMMARY

One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a system configured tocharacterize units of work based on business objectives. Within acollaboration environment, it may be important to set and organizebusiness objectives, or goals, for users to work towards. Goals may bedifferentiated from tasks to complete a project because the goals may beexpectations of outcomes and not merely user actions (i.e., tasks) to becompleted. In some implementations, users may create business objectivesthat may be tracked to reflect progress towards fulfillment thereof. Insome implementations, the progress may be updated based on monitoring ofone or more of external resources, user input, and/or other information.The business objectives may be associated with a set of units of workthat may indirectly facilitate progress toward fulfillment of thebusiness objectives. The set of units of work may not directlycontribute to the progress. By way of non-limiting illustration, aconnection between the set of units of work and a corresponding businessobjective may be indirect in that completion of at least one of theunits of work may have no direct impact on progress toward fulfillmentof the business objective. The concept of “no direct impact” may meanthat completion of the at least one unit of work may not cause progresstoward fulfillment of the business objective without independent actionoutside of the at least one unit of work. Instead, the fulfillment ofthe at least one business objective may make such independent actionmore likely (e.g., through coercion, assistance, education,incentivization, reminder, etc.). However, in some implementations,business objectives may be associated with a set of units of work thatmay directly facilitate progress toward fulfillment of the businessobjectives. Accordingly, completion of the set of units of work maydirectly contribute to the progress toward fulfillment.

In some implementations, business objectives may have one or moresubordinate business objectives and/or one or more superior businessobjectives. The progress of a given business objective may directlyand/or indirectly facilitate progress toward fulfillment of one or moresuperior business objectives. As such, the users may be able to view theprogress, or lack thereof, towards fulfillment of the business objectiveand which units of works may be advantageous and which may be not.

By way of non-limiting illustration, a business objective may be toreach a given quantity of subscribers on a social media page. A set ofunits of work that may facilitate progress toward fulfillment of thebusiness objectives may include a quantity of brand campaigns. Progresstoward that fulfillment of the business objectives may not necessarilybe achieving quantity of business campaigns, but rather it is reachingthe desired outcome of the given quantity of subscribers. Thus, thebusiness objective may be achieved while only one of the brand campaignshas happened—indicating a success—or may be missed even if all businesscampaigns are completed—indicating a failure. In this manner, a businessobjective may be a tool for leaders to set expectations of what outcomesthey want to achieve, instead of merely what methods or work may be usedto achieve them.

One or more implementations of a system to characterize units of workbased on business objectives may include one or more hardware processorsconfigured by machine-readable instructions. Executing themachine-readable instructions may cause the one or more hardwareprocessors to facilitate characterizing units of work based on businessobjectives. The machine-readable instructions may include computerprogram components. The computer program components may include one ormore of an environment state component, a progress component, a userinterface component, and/or other components.

The environment state component may be configured to manage environmentstate information maintaining a collaboration environment and/or otherinformation. The collaboration environment may be configured tofacilitate interaction by users with the collaboration environment. Theenvironment state information may define one or more of units of workassigned to individual users within the collaboration environment,business objectives associated with the units of work, and/or otherinformation. The environment state information may include one or moreof work unit records, objective records, and/or other records. The unitsof work may be specified within the work unit records. The businessobjectives may be specified within the objective records. Individualobjective records may describe individual business objectives and mayidentify sets of individual ones of the work unit records that specifythe units of work associated with the individual business objectives. Byway of non-limiting illustration, a first objective record may describea first business objective and identify a first set of work unit recordsthat specifies a first set of units of work associated with the firstbusiness objective.

The progress component may be configured to obtain progress informationand/or other information for individual ones of the business objectives.The progress information for the individual business objectives mayconvey progress toward fulfillment of the individual businessobjectives. The progress toward fulfillment of the individual businessobjectives may be determined independently from incremental completionof the units of work in the individual sets of units of work associatedwith the individual business objectives. By way of non-limitingillustration, the connection between the set of units of work and acorresponding business objective may be indirect in that completion ofat least one of the units of work may have no direct impact on progresstoward fulfillment of the business objective. By way of non-limitingillustration, the progress information may convey the progress towardfulfillment of the first business objective. Completion of at least oneof the units of work in the first set of units of work may have nodirect impact on the progress toward fulfillment of the first businessobjective.

The progress component may be configured to update the objective recordsand/or the other records. The update may be based on the progressinformation and/or other information. As such, the progress towardfulfillment of the business objectives may be maintained by theobjective records.

As used herein, any association (or relation, or reflection, orindication, or correspondency) involving servers, processors, clientcomputing platforms, and/or another entity or object that interacts withany part of the system and/or plays a part in the operation of thesystem, may be a one-to-one association, a one-to-many association, amany-to-one association, and/or a many-to-many association or N-to-Massociation (note that N and M may be different numbers greater than 1).

As used herein, the term “obtain” (and derivatives thereof) may includeactive and/or passive retrieval, determination, derivation, transfer,upload, download, submission, and/or exchange of information, and/or anycombination thereof. As used herein, the term “effectuate” (andderivatives thereof) may include active and/or passive causation of anyeffect. As used herein, the term “determine” (and derivatives thereof)may include measure, calculate, compute, estimate, approximate,generate, and/or otherwise derive, and/or any combination thereof.

These and other features, and characteristics of the present technology,as well as the methods of operation and functions of the relatedelements of structure and the combination of parts and economies ofmanufacture, will become more apparent upon consideration of thefollowing description and the appended claims with reference to theaccompanying drawings, all of which form a part of this specification,wherein like reference numerals designate corresponding parts in thevarious figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that thedrawings are for the purpose of illustration and description only andare not intended as a definition of the limits of the invention. As usedin the specification and in the claims, the singular form of “a”, “an”,and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictatesotherwise.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a system configured to characterize units of workbased on business objectives, in accordance with one or moreimplementations.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method to characterize units of work based onbusiness objectives, in accordance with one or more implementations.

FIG. 3 illustrates a graph of business objectives, in accordance withone or more implementations.

FIG. 4 illustrates a user interface, in accordance with one or moreimplementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 configured to characterize units of workbased on business objectives, in accordance with one or moreimplementations. In some implementations, users may create businessobjectives, or goals, that may be tracked to reflect progress towardsfulfillment thereof. In some implementations, the progress may beupdated based on monitoring of external resources, user input, and/orother information. The business objectives may be associated with a setof units of work that may facilitate the progress toward fulfillment butnot directly contribute to the progress. In some implementations, thebusiness objectives may have one or more of a subordinate businessobjective and/or a superior business objective.

In some implementations, system 100 may include one or more of one ormore servers 102, one or more client computing platforms 104, externalresources 126, and/or other components. Server(s) 102 may be configuredto communicate with one or more client computing platforms 104 accordingto a client/server architecture and/or other architectures. Clientcomputing platform(s) 104 may be configured to communicate with otherclient computing platforms via server(s) 102 and/or according to apeer-to-peer architecture and/or other architectures. Users may accesssystem 100 via client computing platform(s) 104.

Server(s) 102 may include one or more of non-transitory electronicstorage 128, one or more processors 130 configured by machine-readableinstructions 106, and/or other components. Machine-readable instructions106 may include one or more instruction components. The instructioncomponents may include computer program components. Executing themachine-readable instructions 106 may cause server(s) 102 to facilitatecharacterizing units of work based on business objectives. The computerprogram components may include one or more of an environment statecomponent 108, a progress component 110, a user interface component 112,and/or other instruction components.

Environment state component 108 may be configured to manage environmentstate information and/or other information used in maintaining acollaboration environment. The collaboration environment may beconfigured to facilitate interaction by users within the collaborationenvironment. The environment state information may include one or moreof user information, objective information, work information, and/orother information used to define, support, and/or otherwise maintain acollaboration environment.

The user information may include values of user parameters. The valuesof the user parameters may be organized in user records corresponding tousers interacting with and/or viewing the collaboration environment. Thevalues of the user parameters may include information describing theusers, their actions within the collaboration environment, theirsettings, and/or other user information; and/or metadata associated withthe users, their actions within the environment, their settings, and/orother user information. Individual ones of the users may be associatedwith individual ones of the user records. A user record may definevalues of the user parameters associated with a given user.

The values of the user parameters may, by way of non-limiting example,specify one or more of: a user name, a group parameter, a user account,a user role information, a user department, descriptive user content, ato-email, a from-email, a photo, an organization, a workspace, one ormore projects (which may include project parameters defined by one ormore work unit records), one or more business objectives owned and/ormanaged by a user, one or more items of work (which may include one ormore unit of work parameters defined by one or more unit of workrecords) assigned and/or managed by the user, one or more user comments,one or more teams the user belongs to, one or more of the user displaysettings (e.g., colors, size, project order, task order, other unit ofwork order, etc.), one or more authorized applications, one or moreinteraction parameters (e.g., indicating a user is working on/worked ona given unit of work, a given user viewed a given work unit of work, agiven user selected a given unit of work, a timeframe a given user lastinteracted with and/or worked on a given unit of work, a time periodthat a given unit of work has been idle, and/or other interactionparameters), a presence parameter (e.g., indicating presence and/orinteraction level at an environment level, unit of work level, projectlevel, task level, application level, business objective level, etc.),one or more notification settings, one or more progress parameters,status information for one or more work units the user is associatedwith (units of work assigned to the user, assigned to other users by theuser, completed by the user, past-due date, and/or other information),one or more performance metrics of a given user (e.g., how many units ofwork the user has completed, how quickly the user completed the units ofwork, how quickly the user completes certain types of work units, theefficiency of the user, bandwidth of the user, activity level of theuser, how many business objectives the user has helped fulfill throughtheir completion of units of work, etc.), application access information(e.g., username/password for one or more third-party applications), oneor more favorites and/or priorities, schedule information, and/or otherinformation

User role information may specify individual roles of the individualusers in the individual units of work and/or business objectives. A rolemay represent a position of an individual user. The position may bespecified based on a description of one or more of job title, level,stage, and/or other descriptions of position. The role may be specifiedwith respect to a company as a whole, a particular unit of work, aparticular business objective, and/or other considerations. By way ofnon-limiting illustration, a role may include one or more of chiefexecutive officer (or other officer), owner, manager, supervisor,accountant, associate, employee, entry level, midlevel, senior,administrator, director, foreman, engineer, product developer, humanresource officer, artist, art director, and/or other description.

The work information may include values of one or more work unitparameters. The values of the work unit parameters may be organized inwork unit records corresponding to units of work managed, created,and/or assigned within the collaboration environment. A given work unitmay have one or more assignees and/or team members working on the givenwork unit. Work units may include one or more to-do items, action items,objectives, and/or other units of work one or more users shouldaccomplish and/or plan on accomplishing. Units of work may be created bya given user for the given user and/or created by the given user andassigned to one or more other users. Individual units of work mayinclude one or more of an individual project, an individual task, anindividual sub-task, and/or other units of work assigned to and/orassociated with one or more users. An individual project may include aset of tasks and/or other information.

Individual sets of work unit records may be defined by a recordhierarchy. A record hierarchy may convey individual positions of workunit records (and their corresponding units of work) in the recordhierarchy. By way of non-limiting illustration, a position may specifyone or more of a work unit record being superior to another work unitrecord, a work unit record being subordinate to another work unitrecord, and/or other information. As a result, individual work unitrecords in the individual sets of work unit records may be subordinateto other individual work unit records in the individual sets of workunit records. For example, a work unit record may define a unit of workcomprising a task, and a subordinate work unit record may define a unitof work comprising a sub-task to the task. A record hierarchy may definea relationship between work unit records. A work unit record may havesome restrictions placed on it by virtue of having a subordinate workunit record. By way of non-limiting illustration, a work unit record maybe restricted from access by one or more users unless and/or until asubordinate work unit record is completed and/or started. In someimplementations, the work unit records may include a first work unitrecord describing a first unit of work assigned to a first user and/orother work unit records. The first unit of work may include a firstdigital content item and/or other information.

Individual work units records may include hierarchical informationdefining a record hierarchy of the individual work unit records. Thehierarchical information of a work unit record may include one or moreof information identifying other work unit records associated in arecord hierarchy the work unit record belongs to, a specification of theposition of the work unit record in the hierarchy, restrictions and/orother relationships placed on the work unit record by virtue of itsposition, and/or other information.

In some implementations, as a consequence of the record hierarchies, theindividual units of work described in the individual work unit recordsthat are subordinate to the other individual work unit records may besubordinate to the individual units of work in the other individual workunit records.

In some implementations, the one or more work unit parameters mayinclude one or more of a work assignment parameter, a work managementparameter, work creation parameter, and/or other parameters. The valuesof the work assignment parameter may describe units of work assigned tothe individual users. The values of the work management parameter maydescribe units of work managed by the individual users. The values ofthe work creation parameter may describe units of work created by theindividual users.

In some implementations, the units of work may be described based on oneor more of a unit of work name, a unit of work description, one or moreunit of work dates (e.g., a start date, a due date, a completion date,and/or dates), one or more members associated with a unit of work (e.g.,an owner, one or more other project/task members, member accessinformation, and/or other unit of work members and/or memberinformation), a status parameter (e.g., an update, a hardcoded statusupdate, a completed/incomplete/mark complete, a measured status, astatus indicator, quantity of sub-work units remaining for a given unitof work, completed work units in a given project, and/or other statusparameter), one or more user comment parameters (e.g., permission forwho may make comments such as an assignee, an assignor, a recipient, oneor more followers, and/or one or more other interested parties; contentof the comments; one or more times; presence or absence of thefunctionality of up-votes; one or more hard-coded responses; and/orother parameters.), one or more business objectives the unit of work isassociated with, one or more interaction parameters (e.g., indicating agiven unit of work is being worked on/was worked on, given work unit ofwork was viewed, a given unit of work was selected, how long the givenunit of work has been idle, a last interaction parameter indicating whenand what user last interacted with the given unit of work, users thatinteracted with the given unit of work, and/or other interactionparameters indicating sources of the interactions, context of theinteractions, content of the interactions and/or time for theinteractions), one or more digital content item attachments,notification settings, privacy, an associated URL, one or moreinteraction parameters (e.g., sources of the interactions, context ofthe interactions, content of the interactions, time for theinteractions, and/or other interaction parameters), updates, ordering ofunits of work within a given unit of work (e.g., tasks within a project,subtasks within a task, etc.), state of a workspace for a given unit ofwork (e.g., application state parameters, application status,application interactions, user information, and/or other parametersrelated to the state of the workspace for a unit of work), hierarchicalinformation, one or more custom fields (e.g., priority, cost, stage,and/or other custom fields), and/or other information.

The values of the work assignment parameter describing units of workassigned to the individual users may be determined based on one or moreinteractions by one or more users with a collaboration environment. Insome implementations, one or more users may create and/or assign one ormore unit of work to themselves and/or an other user. In someimplementations, a user may be assigned a unit of work and the user mayeffectuate a reassignment of the unit of work from the user or one ormore other users.

In some implementations, values of the work assignment parameter mayindicate that a status parameter of a unit of work has changed from“incomplete” to “marked complete” and/or “complete”. In someimplementations, a status of complete for a unit of work may beassociated with the passing of an end date associated with the unit ofwork. In some implementations, a status of “marked complete” may beassociated with a user providing input via the collaboration environmentat the point in time the user completes the unit of work (which may bebefore or after an end date).

The objective information may include values of one or more objectiveparameters. The values of the objective parameters may be organized inobjective records corresponding to business objectives managed, created,and/or owned within the collaboration environment. Individual objectiverecords may describe individual business objectives and identify sets ofindividual ones of the work unit records that specify the units of workassociated with the individual business objectives. A given businessobjective may have one or more collaborators, and/or team membersworking on the given business objective. Business objectives may becreated by a given user for the given user and/or created by the givenuser and assigned to be owned to one or more other users. Individualbusiness objectives may include one or more of an individual goal, anindividual sub-goal, and/or other business objectives assigned to beowned by a user and/or associated with one or more users. By way ofnon-limiting illustration, a first objective record may describe a firstbusiness objective and identify a first set of work unit records thatspecifies a first set of units of work associated with the firstbusiness objective.

In some implementations, business objectives may be derived from, and/orassociated with, events and/or other information. The events may beexternal and/or integral to the collaboration environment. Events mayinclude occurrences within an external resource (e.g., externalresources 126) and/or occurrences in the real world.

External resources may include application programs accessible to thecollaboration environment. An application program may be external to thecollaboration environment and/or integrated into the collaborationenvironment. An application program external to the collaborationenvironment may be accessible by exiting (closing, minimizing, etc.) theenvironment and launching the application program separately. Anapplication program integrated into the collaboration environment may beaccessible within the environment and/or that access may not requireleaving or exiting the environment. By way of non-limiting illustration,a business objective may be to reach a given quantity of subscribers ona social media page. The business objective may be derived from an eventincluding a social media application showing subscribership to thesocial media page is reaching and/or exceeding the given quantity ofsubscribers. By way of non-limiting illustration, a business objectivemay be to increase the click-through-rate (CTR) on an ad on a webpage bya given percentage. The business objective may be derived from an eventincluding an analytics program showing the CTR for the ad.

An occurrence within the real world may be determined through humanobservation with and/or without the assistance of a computer. By way ofnon-limiting illustration, a business objective may be to become moreprominent in a given field of industry. The business objective may bederived from an event including the business being mentioned in anarticle written about the given field of industry. By way ofnon-limiting illustration, a business objective may be to onboard fivenew clients in a given month. The business objective may be derived froman event including observing the number of new clients being onboardedthat given month. By way of non-limiting illustration, a businessobjective may be to increase the flow of foot traffic into a shop. Thebusiness objective may be derived from an event including observing thenumber of customers walking into the shop.

Individual sets of objective records may be defined by an objectiverecord hierarchy. An objective record hierarchy may convey individualpositions of objective records (and their corresponding businessobjectives) in the objective record hierarchy. By way of non-limitingillustration, a position may specify one or more of an objective recordbeing superior to one or more other objective records, an objectiverecord being subordinate to one or more other objective records, and/orother information. As a result, individual objective records may besubordinate and/or superior to other individual objective records. Forexample, the objective records may further include a second objectiverecord. The first objective record and the second objective record maybe organized by a first objective record hierarchy specifying that thesecond objective record is subordinate to the first objective record.Individual objective records may include hierarchical informationdefining an objective record hierarchy of the individual objectiverecords. The hierarchical information of an objective record may includeone or more of information identifying other objective recordsassociated in an objective record hierarchy, a specification of theposition of the objective record in the hierarchy, other relationshipsplaced on the objective record by virtue of its position, and/or otherinformation. In some implementations, as a consequence of the objectiverecord hierarchies, the individual business objectives described in theindividual objective records that are subordinate to the otherindividual objective records may be subordinate to the individualbusiness objectives in the other individual objective records.

In some implementations, the one or more objective parameters mayinclude one or more of an objective definition parameter, an objectiveprogress parameter, and/or other parameters. The value of the objectivedefinition parameter may describe a particular business objective. Thevalues of an objective progress parameter may specify progressinformation for a particular business objective, and/or otherinformation.

In some implementations, the business objectives may be described basedon one or more of a business objective specification, one or morebusiness objective dates (e.g., a start date, a due date, and/or dates),one or more members associated with a business objective (e.g., anowner, one or more other project/task members, member accessinformation, and/or other business objective members and/or memberinformation), one or more interaction parameters (e.g., indicating agiven business objective was viewed, a given business objective wasselected, how long the given business objective has been idle, a lastinteraction parameter indicating when and what user last interacted withthe given business objective, users that interacted with the givenbusiness objective, and/or other interaction parameters indicatingsources of the interactions, context of the interactions, content of theinteractions and/or time for the interactions), notification settings,privacy, one or more custom fields (e.g., priority, cost, stage, and/orother custom fields), identification of units of work associated with abusiness objective, and/or other information.

A business objective specification may include one or more of what thebusiness objective is (e.g., what is the desired outcome), an eventassociated with the business objective, an external resource associatedwith the business objective, and/or other information.

Progress information for the individual business objectives may conveyprogress toward fulfillment of the individual business objectives. Theprogress information for the individual business objectives may conveyprogress toward fulfillment of the individual business objectives. Insome implementations, the progress toward fulfillment of the businessobjectives may be specified as one or more of a quantitative value, aqualitative value, and/or other information. In some implementations,the quantitative value may be a percentage of completion, an integervalue, a dollar amount, and/or other values. In some implementations,progress toward fulfillment of the individual business objectives may bedetermined independently from incremental completion of the units ofwork in the individual sets of units of work associated with theindividual business objectives. Meaning, the completion of the units ofwork associated with a given business objective may not directlyprogress the given business objective toward fulfillment, but completingthe units of work may make accomplishing the business objective morelikely (e.g., through coercion, assistance, education, incentivization,reminder, etc.). However, in some implementations, progress towardfulfillment of the individual business objectives may be directlydetermined based on incremental completion of the units of work in theindividual sets of units of work associated with the individual businessobjectives.

By way of non-limiting illustration, the progress information may conveythe progress toward fulfillment of the first business objective. Theprogress toward fulfillment of the first business objective may bedetermined independently from the incremental completion of the units ofwork in the first set of units of work. In some implementations, theprogress toward fulfillment of the business objectives may compriseprogress toward occurrence of the events associated with the businessobjective.

The progress component 110 may be configured to obtain progressinformation and/or other information for individual ones of the businessobjectives. In some implementations, the progress component 110 may beconfigured to obtain the progress information by monitoring one or moreexternal resources associated with the events. The progress component110 may be configured to determine progress toward the occurrence of theevents. Thus, responsive to determining progress toward the occurrenceof the events, progress toward fulfillment of the business objectivesmay be determined.

In some implementations, progress component 110 may be configured toobtain progress information from user input and/or other information.The user input may be provided to specify the progress towardfulfillment of the business objectives. By way of non-limitingillustration, user input may be provided into a user interface. An inputfield within the user interface may be dedicated to obtaining theprogress towards fulfillment of the business objective. The progresstowards fulfillment of the business objective may include numbers and/orother values input within the quantity input field. In someimplementations, the progress toward fulfillment of the businessobjectives may be based on one or more of an initial value, a targetvalue, the user input, and/or other information. For example, upon theinitial value being 0, the target value being 100, and the user input(obtained via the input field) being 11, a quantitative value ofprogress may be 11%. In some implementations, users may specify weightsthat different various pieces of information (e.g.,project/portfolio/task completion) have on the fulfillment of a businessobjective. The weighted information may be aggregated to automaticallycalculate an overall progress. In some implementations, progress maytrack in a negative direction. By way of non-limiting illustration, abusiness objective may be to reduce churn from 4% to 3.5%. When you hit3.75%, 50% progress toward the business objective has been made.

In some implementations, the progress component 110 may be configured todetermine when the progress towards fulfillment of the individualbusiness objectives is one or more of at, above, or below a progressthreshold. The progress threshold may be a particular value of progress(e.g., expressed as an integer, a percentage of completion, and/or othervalues). In some implementations the progress threshold may beassociated with a milestone. A milestone may include one or more of aparticular date, completion of a particular amount of the units of workin the individual sets of units of work associated with the individualbusiness objectives, and/or other milestones.

By way of non-limiting illustration, with respect to date milestones, acompany may define business objectives around a “financial year” wherethey could have a “Q3 busines objective”, where Q3 is defined by theorganization with start and end dates that map to the company'sfinancial year. The business objective due date may be separate from thedate milestones, because not all “Q3” objectives are supposed to be doneexactly at the last day of the quarter. While organizations commit toand review their Q3 objectives on the same cadence, some teams may havetheir Q3 objectives due in the middle and graded at the end.

In some implementations, the progress component 110 may be configured tocorrelate occurrence of the progress being at, above, or below theprogress threshold with one or more units of work in the individual setsof units of work associated with the individual business objectives. Forexample, the progress toward fulfillment of a given business objectivebeing at the progress threshold may be subsequent to completion of asubset of one or more units of work. Thus, the completion of the subsetof one or more units of work may be correlated with the progress beingat the progress threshold. For example, the progress toward fulfillmentof a given business objective may be below a progress threshold by agiven date. The completion of one or more units of work up to andincluding the given date may be correlated with the progress being belowthe progress threshold. By correlating the occurrence of the progressbeing at, above, or below the progress threshold with one or more unitsof work, users may be notified (see, e.g., user interface component 112)that their attempts to fulfill a given business objective may besuccessful or at risk. By way of non-limiting illustration, a businessobjective may be achieved while only a small number of units of workwere completed—indicating a success—or may be missed even if all unitsof work are completed—indicating a failure. This may allow companyleaders to get a perspective on progress toward business objectives, toallow them to prioritize the right work and seeing when and wherebusiness objectives are at-risk before it is too late. When a businessobjective is off track, teams may drill down into the strategy and/orunits of work that may be causing this, helping them to take correctiveaction instantly.

In some implementations, a business objective may be “achieved” even if100% of the progress was not. This may be important because some peoplefollow the Objectives and key results (OKR) methodology where anythingabove 70% is considered “achieved” or you may determine that the“spirit” of the goal was achieved even though the metric wasn't quitehit.

In some implementations, user interface component 112 may be configuredto effectuate presentation of individual user interfaces on individualclient computing platforms of one or more client computing platforms104. The user interface component 112 may be configured to effectuatepresentation of a user interface displaying one or more of units ofwork, business objectives, and/or other information. In someimplementations, the user interface may display representations of thebusiness objectives in a timeline, list, flow chart, branching treestructure, directed acyclic graph (DAG), and/or other representations.In some implementations, the user interface may display representationsof the business objectives and/or associated units of work in an orderedlist. In some implementations, representations of the businessobjectives may include icons, graphics, and/or other elements. Selectionof a representation of the business objectives may facilitate generatingand presenting other views of the business objectives.

The user interface may include one or more user interface elementsconfigured to facilitate user interaction with the user interface. Byway of non-limiting illustration, user interface elements may includeone or more of text input fields, drop down menus, check boxes, displaywindows, virtual buttons, and/or other elements configured to facilitateuser interaction.

A user interface may be configured to obtain user input comprising userentry and/or selection of business objectives, specification ofinformation about the business objectives, provide updates to theprogress toward fulfillment of the business objectives, and/or otherinformation.

In some implementations, the user interface may display views of theindividual objective records and/or other records. The views of theindividual objective records may include descriptions of the individualbusiness objectives, representations of the individual sets of units ofwork associated with the individual business objectives, a statusindicator for the individual business objectives, and/or other views.The representations of the individual sets of units of work associatedwith the individual business objectives may include a link, a URL, apointer, and/or other techniques to provide access to the units of workin the individual sets.

The status indicator may convey the progress toward fulfillment of theindividual business objectives. In some implementations, the statusindicator may display text such as “On Track”, “At Risk”, or “Off Track”and/or other indicia to convey a status of the business objective beingfulfilled. In some implementations, the text and/or other indicia toconvey the status may be individual particular colors associated withdifferent statuses. For example, green may be associated with progresstoward fulfillment of the business objective being on track and thus maybe the color of the “On Track” text. The status indicator may display aprogress bar that visualizes the progress towards fulfillment of theindividual business objectives. In some implementations, the progressbar may comprise a particular color.

In some implementations, the user input into the user interface mayinclude values for progress toward fulfillment of a given businessobjective. The values may be one or more of a percentage, a number, acurrency (e.g., USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CAD, AUD, etc.), and/or otherformats of which the business objective is progressing. A target valuemay be a value at which progress towards fulfillment of the businessobjective concludes (e.g., business objective is fulfilled). An initialvalue may be a value at which the progress towards fulfillment of thegiven business objective should begin. For example, upon the initialvalue being 10 and the target value being 100, beginning of the progressmay be 0. The initial value and the target value in the format mayinclude no decimal places or more than one decimal place up to a maximumdecimal place.

In some implementations, the user interface component 112 may beconfigured to generate one or more notifications. The notifications mayinclude identification of the one or more units of work correlated withthe occurrence of the progress being at or below the progress threshold.In some implementations, the notifications may include suggestionsrelated to the one or more units of work. For example, the suggestionmay include reevaluating the individual sets of units of work associatedwith the individual business objectives (or part thereof), replicatingthe individual sets of units of work (or part thereof), reassigning theindividual sets of units of work (or part thereof) to other users,and/or other suggestions. The user interface component 112 may beconfigured to present the notifications. The notifications may bepresented via the user interface.

The progress component 110 may be configured to update the objectiverecords and/or the other records. The update may be based on theprogress information and/or other information. As such, the progress ofthe business objectives may be maintained by the objective records.Simultaneously, the views of the individual objective records may beupdated and displayed via the user interface accordingly. The views ofthe individual objective records that may be updated may include thestatus indicator, and/or other parts of the views.

In some implementations, environment state information may be updated asusers continue to interact with the collaboration environment over time.The environment state component 108 may store and/or archive theenvironment state information periodically and/or based on user requestto archive. In some implementations, the environment state component 108may store historical environment state information specifying historicaluser information, historical work information, historical progressinformation, and/or other information.

FIG. 3 illustrates a directed acyclic graph 300 of business objectivesin one or more objective record hierarchies, in accordance with one ormore implementations. Graph 300 may demonstrate that business objectivesmay have more than one superior and/or subordinate business objective.Graph 300 may include Goal 1 and Goal 2. Goal 1 may be unrelated to Goal2. Goal 1 and 2 may individually include one or more sub-goals. Goal 1may include Sub-Goal A. Goal 2 may include Sub-Goal B. Goal A mayinclude Sub-Goal C, D, and E. Progress toward fulfillment of Sub-GoalsC, D, and E may directly and/or indirectly facilitate progress towardfulfillment of Sub-Goal A. The progress toward fulfillment towardSub-Goal A may directly and/or indirectly facilitate progress towardfulfillment of Goal 1 and Goal 2 simultaneously.

FIG. 4 illustrates user interface 400, in accordance with one or moreimplementations. The user interface 400 may include a view showing aSub-Goal A. The user interface 400 further shows a status indicator 402,status indicator 404, a quantitative value 406 of progress of Sub-GoalA, and sub-goals 408 of Sub-Goal A. Status indicator 402 may display astatus of Sub-Goal A. Status indicator 404 may display a visual progresstoward fulfillment of Sub-Goal A. Quantitative value 406 may furtherdisplay the progress toward fulfillment of Sub-Goal A. Status indicator402, status indicator 404, and quantitative value 406 may be updatedbased on monitoring progress toward occurrences of events external to acollaboration environment and/or based on user input. The user input maybe entered via a user interface responsive to selection of userinterface element 410. User interface 400 may further displaydescriptive information 412 of Goal A. Descriptive information 412 mayinclude one or more of Owner, Due Date, Description, Collaborators,Parent goals (See, FIG. 3 ), and Supporting units of work. TheCollaborators may be one or more users assigned to work toward theprogress. The Supporting work portion may display units of work that areassociated with Goal A (e.g., Task X, Task Z, Project W). Completion ofsuch units of work may facilitate, but not directly affect, progresstoward fulfillment of Goal A. Each of sub-goals 408 may include anindividual status indicator and owner. Upon selection of one of thesub-goals of sub-goals 408 (e.g., Sub-Goal C), a user interface, similarto user interface 400, may display a view showing Sub-Goal C andobjective information and descriptive information thereof. The userinterface 400 may be referred to as a Business Objective Page within acollaboration environment.

It is noted that FIGS. 3-4 are for illustrative purposes only and arenot to be considered limiting. Instead, it is to be understood that userinterfaces may be configured in other ways and/or including otherelements in accordance with one or more implementations of the system100 presented herein.

Referring back to FIG. 1 , in some implementations, server(s) 102,client computing platform(s) 104, and/or external resources 126 may beoperatively linked via one or more electronic communication links. Forexample, such electronic communication links may be established, atleast in part, via a network 116 such as the Internet and/or othernetworks. It will be appreciated that this is not intended to belimiting, and that the scope of this disclosure includes implementationsin which server(s) 102, client computing platform(s) 104, and/orexternal resources 126 may be operatively linked via some othercommunication media.

A given client computing platform may include one or more processorsconfigured to execute computer program components. The computer programcomponents may be configured to enable an expert or user associated withthe given client computing platform to interface with system 100 and/orexternal resources 126, and/or provide other functionality attributedherein to client computing platform(s) 104. By way of non-limitingexample, the given client computing platform 104 may include one or moreof a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a handheld computer, a tabletcomputing platform, a NetBook, a Smartphone, a gaming console, and/orother computing platforms.

External resources 126 may include sources of information outside ofsystem 100, external entities participating with system 100, and/orother resources. In some implementations, some or all of thefunctionality attributed herein to external resources 126 may beprovided by resources included in system 100.

Server(s) 102 may include electronic storage 128, one or more processors130, and/or other components. Server(s) 102 may include communicationlines, or ports to enable the exchange of information with a network 116and/or other computing platforms. Illustration of server(s) 102 in FIG.1 is not intended to be limiting. Server(s) 102 may include a pluralityof hardware, software, and/or firmware components operating together toprovide the functionality attributed herein to server(s) 102. Forexample, server(s) 102 may be implemented by a cloud of computingplatforms operating together as server(s) 102.

Electronic storage 128 may comprise non-transitory storage media thatelectronically stores information. The electronic storage media ofelectronic storage 128 may include one or both of system storage that isprovided integrally (i.e., substantially non-removable) with server(s)102 and/or removable storage that is removably connectable to server(s)102 via, for example, a port (e.g., a USB port, a firewire port, etc.)or a drive (e.g., a disk drive, etc.). Electronic storage 128 mayinclude one or more of optically readable storage media (e.g., opticaldisks, etc.), magnetically readable storage media (e.g., magnetic tape,magnetic hard drive, floppy drive, etc.), electrical charge-basedstorage media (e.g., EEPROM, RAM, etc.), solid-state storage media(e.g., flash drive, etc.), and/or other electronically readable storagemedia. Electronic storage 128 may include one or more virtual storageresources (e.g., cloud storage, a virtual private network, and/or othervirtual storage resources). Electronic storage 128 may store softwarealgorithms, information determined by processor(s) 130, informationreceived from server(s) 102, information received from client computingplatform(s) 104, and/or other information that enables server(s) 102 tofunction as described herein.

Processor(s) 130 may be configured to provide information processingcapabilities in server(s) 102. As such, processor(s) 130 may include oneor more of a digital processor, an analog processor, a digital circuitdesigned to process information, an analog circuit designed to processinformation, a state machine, and/or other mechanisms for electronicallyprocessing information. Although processor(s) 130 is shown in FIG. 1 asa single entity, this is for illustrative purposes only. In someimplementations, processor(s) 130 may include a plurality of processingunits. These processing units may be physically located within the samedevice, or processor(s) 130 may represent processing functionality of aplurality of devices operating in coordination. Processor(s) 130 may beconfigured to execute components 108, 110, 112, 114, and/or othercomponents. Processor(s) 130 may be configured to execute components108, 110, and/or 112, and/or other components by software; hardware;firmware; some combination of software, hardware, and/or firmware;and/or other mechanisms for configuring processing capabilities onprocessor(s) 130. As used herein, the term “component” may refer to anycomponent or set of components that perform the functionality attributedto the component. This may include one or more physical processorsduring execution of processor readable instructions, the processorreadable instructions, circuitry, hardware, storage media, or any othercomponents.

It should be appreciated that although components 108, 110, and/or 112are illustrated in FIG. 1 as being implemented within a singleprocessing unit, in implementations in which processor(s) 130 includesmultiple processing units, one or more of components 108, 110, and/or112 may be implemented remotely from the other components. Thedescription of the functionality provided by the different components108, 110, and/or 112 described below is for illustrative purposes, andis not intended to be limiting, as any of components 108, 110, and/or112 may provide more or less functionality than is described. Forexample, one or more of components 108, 110, and/or 112 may beeliminated, and some or all of its functionality may be provided byother ones of components 108, 110, and/or 112. As another example,processor(s) 130 may be configured to execute one or more additionalcomponents that may perform some or all of the functionality attributedbelow to one of components 108, 110, and/or 112.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method 200 to characterize units of work based onbusiness objectives, in accordance with one or more implementations. Theoperations of method 200 presented below are intended to beillustrative. In some implementations, method 200 may be accomplishedwith one or more additional operations not described, and/or without oneor more of the operations discussed. Additionally, the order in whichthe operations of method 200 are illustrated in FIG. 2 and describedbelow is not intended to be limiting.

In some implementations, method 200 may be implemented in one or moreprocessing devices (e.g., a digital processor, an analog processor, adigital circuit designed to process information, an analog circuitdesigned to process information, a state machine, and/or othermechanisms for electronically processing information). The one or moreprocessing devices may include one or more devices executing some or allof the operations of method 200 in response to instructions storedelectronically on an electronic storage medium. The one or moreprocessing devices may include one or more devices configured throughhardware, firmware, and/or software to be specifically designed forexecution of one or more of the operations of method 200.

An operation 202 may manage environment state information maintaining acollaboration environment and/or other information. The collaborationenvironment may be configured to facilitate interaction by users withthe collaboration environment. The environment state information maydefine units of work assigned to individual users within thecollaboration environment and business objectives associated with theunits of work. Operation 202 may be performed by one or more hardwareprocessors configured by machine-readable instructions including acomponent that is the same as or similar to environment state component108, in accordance with one or more implementations.

An operation 204 may obtain progress information and/or otherinformation for individual ones of the business objectives. The progressinformation for the individual business objectives may convey progresstoward fulfillment of the individual business objectives. A connectionbetween the set of units of work and a corresponding business objectivemay be indirect in that completion of at least one of the units of workmay have no direct impact on the progress toward fulfillment of thecorresponding business objective. Operation 204 may be performed by oneor more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructionsincluding a component that is the same as or similar to progresscomponent 110, in accordance with one or more implementations.

An operation 206 may update the objective records and/or the otherrecords. The update may be based on the progress information and/orother information. As such, the progress of the business objectives maybe maintained by the objective records. Operation 206 may be performedby one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readableinstructions including a component that is the same as or similar toprogress component 110, in accordance with one or more implementations.

Although the present technology has been described in detail for thepurpose of illustration based on what is currently considered to be themost practical and preferred implementations, it is to be understoodthat such detail is solely for that purpose and that the technology isnot limited to the disclosed implementations, but, on the contrary, isintended to cover modifications and equivalent arrangements that arewithin the spirit and scope of the appended claims. For example, it isto be understood that the present technology contemplates that, to theextent possible, one or more features of any implementation can becombined with one or more features of any other implementation.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system configured to manage objectives within acollaboration environment, the system comprising: non-transitoryelectronic storage storing environment state information maintaining acollaboration environment, the collaboration environment beingconfigured to facilitate interaction by users with the collaborationenvironment, the environment state information including a set of workunit records and an objective record, the set of work unit recordsdescribing a set of units of work managed by and/or assigned to one ormore of the users within the collaboration environment, the objectiverecord describing an objective associated with the set of units of work,the objective comprising an expectation of outcome derived from an eventwhich is external to the collaboration environment, the objective recordidentifying the set of work unit records; and one or more physicalprocessors configured by machine-readable instructions to: manage, by aserver, the environment state information stored in the non-transitoryelectronic storage to facilitate the interaction by the users with thecollaboration environment; establish a network connection between theserver and an external resource associated with the event; monitor, bythe server over the network connection, the external resource;determine, based on monitoring the external resource, progress towardoccurrence of the event; determine, by the server and based on theprogress toward occurrence of the event, progress information associatedwith the objective, the progress information conveying progress towardfulfillment of the objective, wherein a connection between the set ofunits of work and the objective is indirect in that completion of atleast one unit of work in the set of units of work has no direct impacton the progress toward fulfillment of the objective because the progresstoward fulfillment of the objective is based on the progress towardoccurrence of the event; and update, by the server, the objective recordbased on the progress information so that the progress towardfulfillment of the objective is maintained by the objective record. 2.The system of claim 1, wherein the progress toward fulfillment of theobjective is specified as a quantitative value.
 3. The system of claim2, wherein the quantitative value is a percentage of completion of theobjective.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more physicalprocessors are further configured by the machine-readable instructionsto: effectuate presentation of a view of the objective record in a userinterface of the collaboration environment through which the usersinteract with the collaboration environment, the view including: adescription of the objective; a representation of the set of units ofwork associated with the objective; and a status indicator for theobjective conveying the progress toward fulfillment of the objective. 5.The system of claim 1, wherein a unit of work in the set of units ofwork is a project associated with a set of tasks.
 6. The system of claim1, wherein a unit of work in the set of units of work is a taskcomprising one or more actions an individual user is expected toaccomplish.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more physicalprocessors are further configured by the machine-readable instructionsto: establish an other network connection between the server and aremotely located client computing platform associated with a user;effectuate communication of information from the server to the remotelylocated client computing platform via the other network connection sothat the remotely located client computing platform presents a userinterface of the collaboration environment through which the userinteracts with the collaboration environment, wherein the user interactswith the collaboration environment by providing user input into the userinterface indicating the progress toward fulfillment of the objective;monitor, by the server, the environment state information to determineupdates to the environment state information that impact the progresstoward fulfillment of the objective; determine, by the server andfurther based on monitoring the environment state information, theprogress information.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or morephysical processors are further configured by the machine-readableinstructions to: determine when the progress toward fulfillment of theobjective is at or below a progress threshold; correlate occurrence ofthe progress toward fulfillment of the objective being at or below theprogress threshold with one or more units of work in the set of units ofwork; and generate and present a notification including anidentification of the one or more of units of work correlated with theoccurrence of the progress toward fulfillment of the objective being ator below the progress threshold.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein theobjective record is included in an objective record hierarchy such thatthe objective record is subordinate to a second objective record. 10.The system of claim 9, wherein the second objective record is includedan in a second objective record hierarchy such that the second objectiverecord is subordinate to a third objective record.
 11. A method tomanage objectives within a collaboration environment, the method beingimplemented in a computer system comprising non-transitory electronicstorage storing environment state information and one or more physicalprocessors configured by machine-readable instructions, such thatexecution of the machine-readable instructions causes the one or morephysical processors to perform the method comprising: managing, by theserver, the environment state information stored by the non-transitoryelectronic storage, the environment state information maintaining thecollaboration environment, the collaboration environment beingconfigured to facilitate interaction by users with the collaborationenvironment, the environment state information including a set of workunit records and an objective record, the set of work unit recordsdescribing a set of units of work managed by and/or assigned to one ormore of the users within the collaboration environment, the objectiverecord describing an objective associated with the set of units of work,the objective comprising an expectation of outcome derived from an eventwhich is external to the collaboration environment, the objective recordidentifying the set of work unit records; establishing a networkconnection between the server and an external resource associated withthe event; monitoring, by the server over the network connection, theexternal resource; determining, based on monitoring the externalresource, progress toward occurrence of the event; determining, by theserver and based on the progress toward occurrence of the event,progress information associated with the objective, the progressinformation conveying progress toward fulfillment of the objective,wherein a connection between the set of units of work and the objectiveis indirect in that completion of at least one unit of work in the setof units of work has no direct impact on the progress toward fulfillmentof the objective because the progress toward fulfillment of theobjective is based on the progress toward occurrence of the event; andupdating, by the server, the objective record based on the progressinformation so that the progress toward fulfillment of the objective ismaintained by the objective record.
 12. The method of claim 11, whereinthe progress toward fulfillment of the objective is specified as aquantitative value.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the quantitativevalue is a percentage of completion of the objective.
 14. The method ofclaim 11, further comprising: effectuating presentation of a view of theobjective record in a user interface of the collaboration environmentthrough which the users interact with the collaboration environment, theview including: a description of the objective; a representation of theset of units of work associated with the objective; and a statusindicator for the objective conveying the progress toward fulfillment ofthe objective.
 15. The method of claim 11, wherein a unit of work in theset of units of work is a project associated with a set of tasks. 16.The method of claim 11, wherein a unit of work in the set of units ofwork is a task comprising one or more actions an individual user isexpected to accomplish.
 17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:establishing an other network connection between the server and aremotely located client computing platform associated with a user;effectuating communication of information from the server to theremotely located client computing platform via the other networkconnection so that the remotely located client computing platformpresents a user interface of the collaboration environment through whichthe user interacts with the collaboration environment, wherein the userinteracts with the collaboration environment by providing user inputinto the user interface indicating the progress toward fulfillment ofthe objective; monitoring, by the server, the environment stateinformation to determine updates to the environment state informationthat impact the progress toward fulfillment of the objective; anddetermining, by the server and further based on monitoring theenvironment state information, the progress information.
 18. The methodof claim 11, further comprising: determining when the progress towardfulfillment of the objective is at or below a progress threshold;correlating occurrence of the progress toward fulfillment of theobjective being at or below the progress threshold with one or moreunits of work in the set of units of work; and generating and presentinga notification including an identification of the one or more of unitsof work correlated with the occurrence of the progress towardfulfillment of the objective being at or below the progress threshold.19. The method of claim 11, wherein the objective record is included inan objective record hierarchy such that the objective record issubordinate to a second objective record.
 20. The method of claim 19,wherein the second objective record is included an in a second objectiverecord hierarchy such that the second objective record is subordinate toa third objective record.